A playful boy’s nursery with turquoise details, vintage finds, special prints, and a diagonal plywood focal wall. Neutral with a dash of boyish fun and color!
Can it still be called a nursery if the child sleeping in it is a toddler? haha! Trust me, it will always disappoint me a little that Malissa’s baby, who is 2 full years younger than mine, got his room done first. But you know what? That just describes my life since Otto came into it.
Otto really truly has my heart but man! He is wild and wiggly and sure has made things difficult to accomplish. Before he was born I had at least a dozen blog posts photographed and pretty much ready to post. And it took me almost the entire first two years of his life to get them up. I’m sure that describes most people’s experience with their second child!
So here I find myself, with a two-year-seven-month-old and I finally just finished his first room. Two days after I photographed it, he climbed out of that crib for the first time. So if I had waited one week longer, it wouldn’t even look like a nursery anymore. But does it still look like one with that child walking around it!?
When I started this room, my first instinct was a totally different direction. Luckily, I abandoned that pretty quickly, before I accumulated too much stuff I wouldn’t use. And I honestly say to myself every single day thank goodness I went this direction instead! This room matches the rest of our home so much better than the first idea would have. In fact, I think it fits right in!
I never thought I’d be able to be one of those people who has a matching scheme throughout their home. I just love all the colors and all the styles too much! But, kind of without even realizing it, I suddenly find that every room in my house has the same colors and a flowing style. And it just makes me so happy!
In this room, what really brought the whole thing together was the rug. Isn’t that so often the case? I saw this one at Target probably two years ago and just loved it. At the time I also had a totally different plan for the rug in this room. I should actually say rugs because I was planning to layer multiple rugs in here. I still love that look. But this rug just HAD to come home with me. And thank goodness, because I had already ordered all the rugs I thought I wanted to use and they actually didn’t look good together. Plus, I’m really happy I had this rug to bring some color into the room. Without it, I’m not sure how bland the room may have come out.
One of my favorite aspects of this room is that wall of drawers and cabinets. Isn’t it just such a fantastic vintage detail?! A lot of this home is pretty basic, but these rooms in the oldest portion of the house have some really great character. The baseboards in this room is another thing that I love.
I also love all the little details. Like that amazing narwhal stuffed animal Malissa bought Otto. Adorable. And the nesting dolls on the shelf above his changing table are a DIY, and the way that we announced Otto’s gender.
One not-so-charming vintage detail of this room though is that it has no electricity running to it. That always makes me laugh a little. At some point they added electricity to the rest of the old part of the house, but they just decided two rooms didn’t need it I guess. I added a lot of lights in various places and at times worried it was all a little to…matchy… But I am happy with how it all came out together.
But maybe my favorite detail in the whole room is this “A is for Airship” Greg Paprocki print. I had this empty frame hung here for….a long time. I thought I wanted a quote in it and went back and forth on a couple, even designing a few myself. But Malissa (who you’ve probably figured out by now gives the best and cutest gifts) gifted Stella the book M is for Monocle a few years ago and I fell IN LOVE with the illustrations. I mean, even the title and the whole victorian alphabet idea is amazing. But the pictures — swoon!
So it occurred to me to go grab that book and look through it for inspiration. I think I was just looking for color ideas or style direction. But then I saw the first page in it and realized the background color was perfect for the rug/room! So then I had the inspired idea to reach out to the artist/author and ask for his permission to blow the print up and frame it. I say inspired because it was just such a great experience! Greg is literally the nicest guy in the world. And it honestly blew my mind that I am living in a time when I can write an email to an artist that I admire and receive a reply. And not only that, but an extremely nice reply.
Greg went out of his way to accommodate my request. He even did all the work FOR me! In the midst of his busy life, he took the time to order me the print himself. It is gorgeous quality and don’t you just think it totally makes the room?! Everyone has noticed and mentioned it when they walk into it. The content is delightful and the execution is obviously darling. I highly encourage you to check out all of Greg’s work! I own no less than 5 of his BabyLit books and every. single. illustration. is inspiring. I even got another one of his prints for Stella’s room, which I am currently re-decorating because I just can’t stop! Hopefully it takes me less than two years and you can see the other print soon, it’s also adorable.
See? There’s two more of his books on display there! :D I just love how many of them were perfect for Otto’s room. Oh Look! I actually snuck the M is for Monocle book in there too, so that’s three:
Aww, Otto had such a blast playing with all these toys that I kept carefully tucked away in his closet until I was ready to photograph them haha! What an adorable little model he was don’t you think?
Well, since it took me a ridiculously long time to finish this room, I guess I felt justified to write a ridiculously long post about it! haha! I think the last thing I wanted to discuss was the wall behind the crib. Which kind of seems like I overlooked it at this point… How do you feel about that plywood detailing?!
I just wanted to add a little something extra to this wall because it is so large and white. So I went and bought a 4′ x 8′ piece of 1/4″ thick plywood at Home Depot and cut it right down the middle diagonally with my jigsaw. When I carried it in, my husband totally did not get it. But once it was up, he admitted that he liked it too! I used a ridiculous amount of liquid nails and then I nailed in a ton of finishing nails all over the place. It feels very very secure. And you can’t even see the nails! I love it to be honest! And it was way simple and way easy.
Well! I think that’s about it! Here are a few more closeups of the room and feel free to leave a comment if you’d like to know where anything is from. There is a good chance its from Target or Ikea though ;)
I’d love to say that 2019 is gonna be the year I really get back into blogging and that my next labor of love won’t be two and half years away. But, Otto isn’t getting any easier lol! So let’s all just cross our fingers I figure out how to multi-task better again :D
